Bill Limiting Access to Police Records Dropped After Opposition from Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project, Other Advocates
After criticism, Ill. state rep drops bill limiting access to police records
The sponsor of an Illinois House of Representatives bill that would have drastically cut public access to police records—including in cases of officer misconduct—killed the bill Thursday after searing opposition from civil rights and open government advocates.
The bill, HB0984, introduced Monday by Rep. Anthony DeLuca, would have amended the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to exempt police records related to any pending state or federal criminal case from public records requests.
By Thursday afternoon, the bill had garnered zero witness slips in favor and 45 in opposition from organizations including the Illinois Attorney General’s office and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. Opponents said this kind of FOIA exemption would thwart public knowledge in cases of excessive use of police force, since victims of such force are often charged with a crime.
“Virtually every incident of police brutality that I’ve studied over many years, virtually every one of those incidents also involved criminal charges, cover charges to justify the brutality,” said Craig Futterman, a University of Chicago law professor and founder of the university’s Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project, who also filed a witness slip against the bill. “So the effect of this bill would shield each and every one of those instances of brutality from public scrutiny for potentially years.”
Read more at Injustice Watch